


Blur the Colors

by oldmythologies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dreamwalking, Fear, Gen, Mind Games, Nightmares, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, and faceted, because it's so interesting, formerly titled zarkon bar fight, is there really not a tag for this relationship yet, there's so much I haven't even touched, writers get on that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 00:03:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10650855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldmythologies/pseuds/oldmythologies
Summary: Shiro sits down at a familiar bar when someone sits down next to him. A sort of Shiro character study.





	Blur the Colors

The alcohol slid down his throat. It was different than what he was used to. It didn't carry with it the familiar burn, the warmth that spread throughout his body when it reached his stomach. He missed the way it made his fingers tingle pleasantly and wondered why alcohol here didn't give the same sensation. He thought he was drinking whiskey, but it didn't quite taste like whiskey. To be honest, it didn't taste like anything at all.

The bar was one he knew from his youth. It was lit low with walls plastered with band posters. He liked this place. It's where he went on his twenty-first birthday, he thinks. Familiar. It was empty, save for him and a bartender he could never quite catch the face of.

It was odd to be here, in this bar, without someone playing. He didn't think he'd ever been there when a local garage band wasn't making the whole bar scream and yell, filling his mind up with noise. He misses the noise. Here, it's too quiet. He didn't like quiet, quiet reminded him too much of — 

He didn't know where; it didn't matter. It wasn't a good place, wherever it was his mind kept trying to harken back to.

He heard a scraping sound of wood on a concrete floor next to him and he turned to see a man, probably seven feet tall, pulling out a bar stool and swinging his leg over it before sitting down next to Shiro. Shiro was fascinated with him.

He wore a three piece suit, dark grey, with a purple tie. His black hair was slicked back. Shiro, again, couldn't focus on his face. All he saw was a strong jawline and a long scar, moving down the length of his face over his right eye.

This man radiated power, Shiro could feel it coming off of him in waves. It was too much and Shiro wanted to get away. Then the man turned to him.

He smiled.

Chills ran down his spine and back up. He felt the need to sit taller, be better, be a Champion.

He also wanted to get away.

"My little black paladin," the man growled. His smile turned malicious. "Come here often?"

Shiro gulped, wishing the alcohol here had worked, that his fear could be numbed.

He tried to slide away on his chair but the man's hand found his right arm.

It grasped the flesh there and  _ squeezed. _ He felt the bone give way to the grip first, shattering into dust. Then his muscles melted away until the only thing left was black sagging skin, which promptly fell into ash. He'd never felt pain like that before. It was a billion bullet ants, it was the death of his parents, it was the pain of losing Matt and Katie and Keith and Lance and Hunk and-

What? No they were fine, everything was fine. Shiro sat at the bar again, no longer falling down a vortex of stars and memories. The man next to him sipped his drink quietly. His right arm joined his left to clutch the glass. He could barely feel the condensation on his palms.

Shiro was fine. Everything was fine.

He took another sip. It was very odd, the lack of the signature feeling of alcohol. He  _ knew  _ it was whiskey, he had asked for whiskey, he had seen the bartender pour him a whiskey. Right? That had definitely happened. He could remember his— her? hands as she poured.

He looked up to the bartender to confirm. She had her back to him, purple robes hiding much of her figure.

_ Purple robes?  _ Why was she wearing wizards robes at a bar?

Shiro turned to the intimidating man next to him to confirm that they were, in fact, seeing the same thing.

The man he turned back to was no longer the one he had left.

_ Zarkon. _

_ No, he'd escaped. Ulaz had helped him, he was free, he was on the castle, he was home, it was okay. _

He could not deny the Emperor existing next to him.

Shiro leapt to his feet, backing away from the bar stool and Zarkon himself.

In his haste to get away, Shiro took his eyes off of Zarkon, just for a moment, not even a second, watching his chair clatter to the ground. He looked up to meet the eyes of his torturer and was met with the confused, wide eyed stare of the man at the bar, his nice suit unruffled.

“Who—” Shiro started, “what, are you.”

The man turned back around, facing the dirty mirror across the bar. His face still lost in a haze of memory, Shiro could see how his eyes glowed violet.

“Just a man getting a drink. Sit down, Shiro.” The man practically growled his name.

Shiro gulped.

“No,” the man looked at him in the mirror as Shiro shifted back and forth on his feet. “Not until you tell me who you are.”

“You know who I am,” he sneered.

“But you can’t be here.”

The man laughed, the rumble making Shiro shudder.

“I can do whatever I want, remember?  _ Champion? _ ”

Shiro started at the word, the title, the name. The flash of memories caught him off guard, the noise that filled every pore as he walked into the arena, dust and blood filling his lungs— 

“Which one were you thinking about.”

Shiro tried to slow his breathing. Surprisingly, it worked.

“Nothing. I don’t remember anything.”

The man smiled. “Was it the Tarkirian prince?”

_ —a flash of a tall, spindly creature, one of it’s arms lying in the dust, green blood—  _

“No.”

“How about the Ralgar beast?”

_ —fur, carbon fiber strong; holding it down as he strangled it, feeling the surprisingly soft fibers in his bare hands, watching the eyes of the mammoth fade as they pled for mercy, wishing he’d been able to end it quickly, not feel it twitch— _

“ _ No _ .”

The man leaned forward on the bar, wicked teeth glinting in the midst of the fog that consumed his features.

“The Malish child.”

_ —so small, eyes so large as it huddled in a corner; he refused to kill it, he offered himself, but they kept shocking him, again and again until he couldn’t feel anything but the pulses coursing through his body, his arm lighting up of its own volition; his brain silently screaming as he lost all control, something that was  _ something else _ pulling him towards the child, the  _ something else _ forcing him to—  _

“ _ No!” _

Shiro didn’t know when the man, when  _ Zarkon  _ stood up. He didn’t know when he ended up in a crumpled mess. He pulled his hands up to cover his face only to find one missing.

Zarkon knelt down in front of him. Shiro pulled away from the hand that tried to touch his face. He refused to look up, to see the perfectly coiffed man he had seen turn purple, he couldn’t admit that Zarkon was  _ here _ , infiltrating his youth, one of the only good things he remembered from before they got him, before they broke him.

The hand pulled away.

It returned as quickly as it left, the suddenness of the slap not allowing Shiro any time to stifle his cry.

His jaw was clenched between sharp unrelenting claws and his jaw was forced up. Shiro kept his eyes closed.

“Look at me,” the claws tightened.

Shiro tried to shake his head  _ no _ but the claws wouldn’t let him.

Zarkon growled.

“I said  _ look _ .”

He tried to object, he tried to keep his head down, but suddenly his vision was filled with  _ him _ .

The purple skin was darker in the dim light, but the  _ eyes.  _ Glowing violently in the light, Shiro hated looking at them but try as he might, he couldn’t look away.

“I own you. Never forget.”

The claws retracted from his jaw as Zarkon stood to his full height, towering over the bleeding mess of a man he left behind.

Zarkon nodded to the woman in the purple robes behind the counter.

_ Haggar _ .

She nodded, raised her arms, filling the room with lightning, blinding Shiro before he was plunged back into darkness.

* * *

 

He woke up in his bed, sheets, blankets, and pillows alike pushed off of the mattress, leaving Shiro alone in his sleep shirt and pants, damp with the cold sweat that always accompanied his nightmares. He was comforted by the blue light, so different than the overwhelming violet of his dreams.

Staring at the ceiling, Shiro went to sit up, wincing at an unfamiliar pain. He tended to clench his jaw in his thrashing, so the soreness was nothing unfamiliar. He went to rub out the socket where jaw met skull and was surprised when he didn’t meet smooth skin, but instead wet scratches.

He jerked his hand away from his face, and in the castle’s glow he could barely make it out.

_ Blood. _

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is sort of an experiment in a new writing style, let me know what you think! Comments and constructive criticism are much appreciated : )
> 
> I'm yelling about Shiro (my child) on [tumblr](http://oldmythos.tumblr.com).


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